While we promise not to just regurgitate every little story we see on other sites, this is very interesting indeed. As that article has spoiler tags I’ll do you all the courtesy of continuing this post below the jump.

Venture forth for some of them tasty spoilerinos…

The aforementioned dozy actor is Neve McIntosh, and this is what she’s been blabbing:

“The stories have got a bit darker. I play twins, and they’re big lizardwarrior women. They’re one of the Silurian tribes that have been undisturbed under the earth. And of course we get disturbed. It’s the first time I’ve worn prosthetics but I’m still recognisable if you know me well enough.”

Anyone who’s cast even half an eye on the trailer for series 5 will know that it featured weird lizard humanoid things. There’s been a lot of back and forth on various ming-mong heavy arenas about what these lizards are and the popular opinion that they’re Silurians has been confirmed by Mrs. Blabby Mouth up there. Not that it matters so much as this fact would’ve been confirmed before broadcast, anyway and, you know, I and many others live for spoilers like this. They excite us.

Speaking of sexual excitement, the Silurians will be appearing in a two-parter by ex-Torchwood head writer and Cyber-fetishist Chris Chibnal. The last time Chris tore himself away from orgasm induced insomnia to write a Who episode we got the distinctly rubbish 42, so it’s time to hope against hope Moff can get something good out of him. It has to be said, though, including one of the best races Doctor Who has ever created is a good start.

Jonathan Capps‘ name translates in the old Draconian tongue as “The Oncoming Storm”. Curiously enough, when spelled out backwards, it translates in Kaled as “Gobby Northerner Who Likes Sandwiches”.

The Silurian is passable I suppose though a bit too redesigned for my liking. My real problem is with the Sea Devil. It just looks far too…humanoid. You can see a human face behind all the make-up whereas the old Sea Devils were clearly massive fish. In fact, I just realised they don’t look dissimilar to Jabe the Tree from Series 1! http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40924000/jpg/_40924373_dr_who_06.jpg

I dunno, it certainly makes sense to being the Sea Devils and Silurians together in one story and I don’t see much need to bring a third species into the mix. They’ve just been heavily redesigned, probably with a story reason as to why they look so different.

From the pictures shown, I’m taking the creature on the left as the Sea Devil, and the one holding the gun to be a Silurian. Are we all doing it this way round?

To be honest, while these characters were beautiful in their 1970s outings, when they reappeared in the 1980s they were already redesigned to such an extent that I can’t be upset by them here. The Silurian doesn’t have a Davros-style third eye lightbulb! And the Sea Devil doesn’t seem to have a weak neck that’s collapsing under the weight of its own head! Whether they work will depend entirely for me on the script and story. Let’s hope this time they’ve stopped calling themselves “Silurians” and “Sea Devils”, for a start.

I like the turtle-like mouth of the Sea Devil. Really the main departure I can see from its original design is that the webbing formerly hanging down from around the back of its head is now standing upright (making it look more like the Silurian). The original Sea Devils looked like swimming creatures – the upright and more solid webbing doesn’t give the same “streamlined for swimming” impression. Like the new Sonic design actually, the Sea Devil here doesn’t look like it has a “fast mode” tucked away for when it’s in its optimum environment.

The Silurian looks the most different from its original design, though. Like the Sea Devils, the originals didn’t have human eyes or mouths at all. If they’re retaining the hierarchy from the 1980s story, the Silurians will be the dominating species; perhaps the production team decided that this dynamic would be best conveyed with them having human eyes and a mouth that wasn’t smothered too fully in rubber. This is what I’m guessing, but think it’ll be a shame if this means we’ve essentially lost what was so alien about the Silurians in the first place.